What You Need to Know About Android 2.3 Gingerbread

Google on Monday announced its new Nexus S phone, which runs an upgraded version of the Android operating system dubbed Gingerbread.

Gingerbread (Android 2.3) mostly adds refinements to older features, such as faster text input and an improved copy-and-paste tool. However, there are also some brand-new additions to the OS, such as internet telephony and near-field communications.

Near-field communications

The OS ships with an NFC-reader application, which can read NFC tags. (For a full explainer on NFC, read Wired’s 2004 article.) This addition has bigger long-term implications: If a bunch of smartphones ship with NFC chips, then merchants could potentially use Gingerbread-powered devices to read their chips as a substitute for the credit card. So the idea is you’d be able to pay for everything with your phone.

Support for front-facing camera

The built-in camera app will now support a front-facing camera, if the Android device has one. (That’s cool, but Google probably should’ve added this before HTC shipped the Evo 4G smartphone with a front-facing camera.)

Internet phone

The Gingerbread OS adds a built-in web phone, but it doesn’t look straightforward to use. You’ll have to add your own Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) account in order to activate internet phoning. Don’t know what that is? You can find out how to get one at OnSIP.

Cleaner UI

Google promises that the new simplified UI will make Android easier to learn and faster to use. Google has incorporated changes to visual themes while also tweaking menus to make them easier to navigate.

Task manager

There’s now a shortcut to the Manage Applications menu, which lets you monitor the activity of each app to see how much memory each one is sucking up. It’s kind of like having a menu item for CTRL+ALT+DEL in Windows.

Faster text input

A problem I’ve always had with the Android OS was the keyboard, which I’ve found unresponsive compared to the soft keyboard on Apple’s iOS devices. Fortunately, Google says Gingerbread’s soft keyboard has been redesigned for faster typing and editing; some keys have been reshaped and repositioned. Gingerbread also adds the ability to correct a misspelled word by displaying a list of dictionary suggestions over a selected word.

iPhone-ish copy-and-paste

The Gingerbread copy-and-paste tool now looks fairly similar to Apple’s iOS version. To select a word you press and hold, and you can drag markers over the entire area you want to highlight and copy. Then you can copy to the clipboard and paste.